My first European pro race.

This is just a real quick post to let you know i did my first pro race with the team on the weekend. Since the work front is quiet i have being getting in some regular training rides and some racing. I had a good amateur race last week at Begijnendijk, next to Booischot, despite pulling out at 4 laps to go (race was 13 laps 8km). I did another one last Sunday with the boys which did not suit me at all, it had a couple of little rolling hills, tight corners and 3 cobbled sections one of which was slightly up hill. So 2 7km laps in (of 12) and i was done.

Then i did my first race in Holland during the week. It was a local amateur/masters race that was held on a flat smooth cicuit of 3.5km with a distance of 60km, so i figured i could surely finish this one. The first thing i noticed was the organisation of this small local club ran race. They had all the course closed off with marshalls on every corner, fencing down the finsh straight with a semi trailer parked there for the race callers. Around the course people would set up their chairs on the sidelines and watch. The houses on the course would have the owners also out in the front yard with a table of snacks and a beer while they watch the race. No one cares the road is closed. So with 45 starters on the line i was ready, for me the race seemed it was more for my fitness level at this stage and i might be able to do something in the race as most of the riders are working class amateurs like me. There was a break 20 seconds up the road after lap 3, so i attacked and chased on my own. I burried myself and caught the break, but i struggled to recover from my efforts and didnt have the stamina to stay with them. I decided to drop back and finish with the bunch, i was spewing when the break kept their 20 second lead and won the race. But i really enjoyed the race thou and have decided thats the racing i will do more often. But everything about it was professional from the commentry to the flowers presented to the podium finishers. Linds said the winners even threw two arms in the air, pointed to their jersey sponsors as they crossed the line as if they'd just won the worlds. These races are held weekly in the evenings, in a different location each time, nearby Eindhoven so its alot closer for me to get to rather than traveling to the otherside of Brussels to do a race almost twice the distance.



Now just when i decided to focus on a level of racing where i can proberly do well, i had previously arranged to do a real pro race. Gil asked me if i wanted to do it as he thought it might be easier than some amateur races, and it was on a good course. I knew i would be way in over my head doing a 160km pro kermesse, but the Hiest op den Berg kermesse would be it. It was basicly a local race for the team so to do well would be good. My plans were to last as long as i could, i was tipping around 4 laps max. I was calm before the start cos i knew i wouldnt be out there long, i know my limits and im realistic.

The race was neutral for a km or so then it was on, but a few km's later it would ease up. Now i knew i didnt have the fitness or the long km's in my legs, but if the pace stayed the way it was i could proberly get further than i first thought. One thing i did have was racing experience to be able to stay out of the wind and move up to the front when i needed to. At some points we were doing 60km/h, then it would slow to 40 where you had to take the chance to mount the bike path and move up the front. Then you just follow the wheels in the counter attacks until it eases up again, but if you sit up too much you would find yourself in the middle again of 150 or so riders. In the middle of the bunch would be riders from teams like Silence-lotto, Cofidis, Skill-Shimano and Landbouwcredit just sitting in doing it easy. I was riding next to Nico Eckhout from Topsport-Vlaanderen at one point, he was riding like he was on a training ride. But even i found the race to be not super hard, nowhere near as hard as i thought it would be. It was fast but you could sit in no worries. Half way thru i had stopped to help Steffan with his rear wheel but Gil and Eddy were right on to it in the car. Still, i was there to help him come back atleast, and my recovery was much better so i was able to sit in and keep going for a few more laps. It was'nt until i was at the 120km mark where i started to get tired, but for a couple of laps i um'd and ar'd whether to bust my ass and try to finish. With 3 laps remaining it was possible, but i was just tired and called it a day, maybe i just needed some HARDEN THE F*#K UP PILLS. I thought my first pro race went well, better than i expected really. for only doing 50-70km a day i thought it was good.



So for the rest of the race we had Sam in the lead group with Sven in a chase group and the rest of the guys [Nick, Chris, Steffan, Matt and Michael] in the peloton. Sven was vomiting again so he pulled out of the chase at about 4 to go. Tom had a great ride and lasted til a lap just before me but Sam ended up with the best result finishing 7th i think. Before the start when your rolling up and down you can here the on lookers saying "cyclingnews team" as you ride past, so you know you get the attention. To ride at the front and be in the moves and end up with a result like Sam's is good for the team so those onlookers that noticed us will remember the team.

Time for some Work, Rest and Play.

I thought it was time to bring you up to date on what has being going on. I have not being super busy but just havent had the time to get on the computer to do everything i need to. You should notice i threw on two new photo albums titled 'work rest and play' and also 'Ardennes training ride', i just didnt get time to post anything. There will also be a new album from the recent races from Omloop Kempen and Friesland as well as a amateur race i did.

So with the not so busy race program i have had time to train, get some work done around the house and get out on the mountain bike, hence the work, rest and play album title. Linds and i have being busy both in the house and in the garden. The painting is almost done and now we are working on our master bedroom in the attic. We've spent some time in the garden laying out some new paving and i made a start on a vegie garden for us. We just need some grass down and the yard will be looking pretty good.

Last week was some real warm weather, so Linds and i took the mountain bikes out to explore some of the forrest that is at our back door. We have about 3 or 4 good fixed loops of about 30 km in the nearby forrests, so i think there will be some more mountian bike riding to come. During the week we did a team training ride in the Ardennes starting in Houffalize, one of Sven's favourite training grounds, and i can see why. It was a 170km drive from the house but it was a great day and the terrain was sensational, good quiet roads and some climbs that were'nt too hard that everyone could go up together. As for me i was really lacking the strength for climb after climb, so i called it a day after 100km but it was still a great day. You can see by the photos that its a great place for riding.



Racing wise, on the 11th we had the Omloop der Kempen which is a local race for Linds and i as it passes through our town and starts only 10km up the road. So these days my truck stays at the team house as we have more racing over my way, but its good for the riders to learn the responsability of loading the truck rather than have someone do everything for them. The riders should always put their own bag and bike in, we're not a team that mothers them as their here to learn.
So once the guys picked me up on the way through it was time to get down to some racing, but we didnt have that many starters as everyone is sick with some form of stomache bug which has them throwing up when the pace is over 40km/h. Just four took to the start line, but more importantly it was the first race for Nico as DS. He was better in the car than Hoboken but still has a few things to pick up. The roll of the DS is to get all the race info and make the car ready by sticking on the race lables that sit on the front windsheild, the convoy number and the antenna's for the radio's, which Nico forgot to put on. In the car, he drives smooth and does'nt take stupid risks in the convoy, could be a bit more on the horn thou. He gave the riders info on time splits, sprint locations and danger sections throughout the race, thou Lindsay was in the VIP seat again so she gave him some reminders every now and then.
A few more races and he will have it down pat, the only bad habbit is that he was on the phone way too much talking or txt'n people, but he's Nico Mattan. For me the race was a little boring as we had car 21 and the race was always in amoungst the trees so you couldnt really see anything.



Just on Wednesday we had our 3rd hotel stay as we headed up to the north of Holland for a 1.1 race called Friesland [or Frysland]. Again the guys picked me up on the way through just after lunch [so i got in 2hrs on the bike in the morning] and we were making good time when we deciced to make a piss stop. After some pissing and some stretching of the legs it was time to hit the road, but not for the truck. the computer apparently deciced to shut down and it wouldnt start, the bad thing is it may happen again. So we got to the hotel a little later than expected and Eddy had waited with the truck for the roadside service guys to come so he was even later. But we had just enough light in the day left to do the jobs we needed to.
As for the race it was a quiet one like Kempen, thou we had car 7 so viewing the race was a little better. With the guys all sick [apart from Peter and Tom] their a little off their best. Peter finished in the pack, Sven dropped off just before the local laps and did well despite being ill. The pace was fast at the start due to a tail wind but Tom stayed in til the 50km point which was really good for him, then Nick and Chris found the pace too hot. Another 50k or so later Bjorn was at the back spewing up, looks like he now also has the same bug as the rest of the team.



These days there can be a big gap between races so updates will be shorter if i update every 2 weeks, Im starting to get in a bit more racing with the spare time i have thou. I did the Booiscot race last week with the aim to last as long as i could. With a large group up the road, 80km was as far as i got when the race officals pulled our bunch out. I had another just yesterday, although i only got to the 80km point again before cramping, the race was much faster and i was able to ride near the front for all that time. A sign of the fitness slowly coming back but at 34 and racing guys in their early 20's i dont expect to be winning. My racing has become just a hobby now as work is more important. I have picked up some work with another team to get some more experince and money. So at the end of this month i will be off to Norway with the Irish An Post team which will be a change and fill in some of the spare time i have. The wheel building has come to a stop for some unknown reason, so i had to look for more work for extra money. I applied for a few mechanic positions at shops in the area but have not heard back, i take its the language barrier [which is something i must make time for]. So i decided to get the word out to some teams and freelance a little, but i think i could only manage 2 or 3 teams anyway, i still want to do some racing. Other than that i do some training in the mornings then relax at home doing some chores, so while i might have it easy i aint going to be a millionaire anytime soon, but being happy with life is more important to me.

So check out the photo albums and that special post i said i would do is still to come as well as a report on the bikes we ride, so stay tuned. Also be sure to check out the team website [sidebar under my links] as the riders post a few of their experiences and photos.

Funky

Return to VIP1

(By Linds)

As the team is doing more single-day races around Belgium and Holland this year, I've had more of a chance to spend my weekends on the road with Mark, and had a few trips in VIP1.

Two weeks ago, I headed to Duren in Germany with the team for the day. Duren is close by Achen, so just over the border from Netherlands and Belgium. The weather was looking ominous as we left early in the morning, but by the time the race started, had improved out of sight to a beautiful sunny day. The course was to head out up a hill for 20 km, then do 3 50km laps, then go back down the hill into town, and do 5 5km local laps. The whole race except for the local laps was hilly, something the boys weren't used to in Belgium (well, a hill more than 1km long anyway). At this race there was no soigneur for the day, so Rudi and I did the feed station, which was just bidons anyway. As the team car came through the feedstation following the peloton, Tina jumped out and I jumped in for the rest of the race.

In typical german race-official style, there was practically no information given over the race radios. So my first task was to tell Gil and Mark what was going on in the peloton: 3 groups, we had guys in the second and third groups, and the time gaps. A lack of communication between the comissaires of the day meant the 3nd group almost rode through the caravan now following the 2nd group as they caught back up to them, as the car's weren't pulled out of the gap until Gil got on the radio to the commisairres! It was a pretty boring race until poor Michael crashed about 40 km to go, then we just had 2 guys left (Sven and Peter) for the finish. With Rudi now back at the truck, and down a soigneur, Gil let me out at the finish straight on the last lap to greet the guys as they came through at the finish. Wished someone had got a photo, because Gerard would have loved the publicity he got: Gil stopped in the middle of the road (basically last car in the caravan), let me out, then me with the purple team jersey on, walked very casually down the finish straight to the soigneur post after the line. The crowd was quite large, so talk about prime time advertising!!! (Hahaha)

One of the things I notice most from VIP1 is the race organisation and how it varies from country to country. I hadn't experienced it in Germany from VIP1 before, but I didn't think it was all that safe compared to some of the other races I'd seen. The main difference is there was no big police escort stopping traffic entering against the race direction, rather just a rolling road closure where the oncoming cars would just stop in their lane. So the peloton was mainly down to one lane, because every now and then there'd be a car in the other lane. Imagine racing on a road with parked cars. It wasn't too safe in the caravan either, normally the managers stay in the slow lane but overtake in the fast lane (the left here), but this day we had to dodge quite a bit because we'd come around a corner and there'd be an oncoming car (stopped or not sometimes!) sitting there! So there was that factor, and also a lack of race information apparently, though they were giving pretty regular updates when I was in the car. I must say though, not all german traffic control is bad, the tour I did last year seemed to be quite ok for traffic control, with a large police escort. Dutch traffic control is pretty good, the cars, although allowed in the opposite direction, actually pull off the road when they stop. In Belgium, there's always diversions in place so no traffic goes against the direction of the peloton. here, where the course is a loop (usually less than 20 km) the traffic can only go one way around the loop. For bigger loops and point-to-point courses, there is a massive police escort giving plenty of warning to stop the cars going against the peloton in a rolling road closure way. It's so much safer!!

Last weekend I went up to North Holland for the Ronde van Noord Holland. Some quick geography: The Netherlands is made up of provinces, like Aust is made up of states. Two provinces where Amsterdam and Rotterdam are located are called North and South Holland. Together, this region is "Holland". The collective of "Holland" and the other provinces makes up the Netherlands. To foreigners, Holland = the Netherlands, however to the Netherlanders there is a clear distinction. People from non-Holland provinces don't like being called Hollanders! Even I was a bit confused at first, so don't worry. Back to the race, it wasn't until race day that I realised that the Ronde van Noord Holland was the tour of the North Holland Province, not in the north of Holland / The Netherlands. So we headed up past Amsterdam, for the first time that I'd been to this part of Holland.

Another bit of geography (and I have to get my book out for this to make sure I get it right): 60% of dutch people live below sea level. The book doesn't say exactly how much of the Netherlands is below sea level. As so much is below sea level, there are all these dijks everywhere, especially near the edges. A dijk is a big levee bank, basically. They are there to keep the sea out, and keep the interior land, below sea level, dry. The land in the middle is called a polder. Now to ensure the polder stays dry, the people there need to cooperate effectively and manage it well. One mistake and bye-bye to half the Netherlands. So this management and cooperation has, over the centuries, been built into the dutch culture, leading the British to pronounce the dutch governmental style the Polder model.

How does this fit into Mark's blogs about bike racing??? Well, up in North Holland province (go look at your map and you'll understand), the province is basically a polder, where it is kept dry by a dijk. Not only that, but like a well-built ship, the polder is broken into mini-polders by inland dijks, so if one part floods, other parts are kept dry. So in North Holland, the flat land is criss-crossed by these massive levee banks, often in the fields and sometimes with a channel in the middle (for both irrigation and water management!). The characteristic of the Ronde van Noord Holland is that a good 2/3 of the race is up on these dijks. The race is therefore typically a very tough race, as the riders are exposed to the wind pretty much all day, up on these dijks, and usually breaks into many small groups early on.







Off the dijk and through town:


The race was a 1.1 (but no protour teams attended), so it was always going to be a very tough race for the guys, made even tougher by the dijks, and that they'd raced the day before. The guys are still lacking a bit of strength in these bigger races, and not used to backing it up two days in a row. So most of them were out within the first 40 km, leaving only Matt and Peter going on (to their defense the peloton covered 50 km in the first hour anyway). Having only 2 guys in the bunch meant a very nice drive in the country side for us! It was great though, Mark and I got to see quite a lot from these dijks (you're up on the top, and the land's flat below you, you can see for miles). The dijks snaked around quite a bit, only one lane wide up top, and at 50 km/h it's quite scary! It's spring here now, and the tulips have just been harvested, but not all of them, and often we'd see a field of beautiful tulips!


The other interesting bit about the architecture of the dijks, I can't quite explain. They're like legitimate roadways, with driveways coming off them and the houses down below. You'll have to look at the photos. One thing I don't understand yet is the waterways inside the polders. There's all these channels everywhere, you guess for irrigation. But some of the towns are like floating towns, a bit like Venice with channels for streets. Even some of the paddocks are separated by these channels, like a mote. It was strange. But really cool too, being able to tie your boat up at the back fence! You could travel almost anywhere in the Netherlands by the network of canals, like roadways. That's one more thing, the Netherlands has as many canals/channels as it does roads, and uses big barges for transporting goods as much as it does trucks. It's interesting to see sometimes, how such big barges can fit down some not-so-big canals!

Water-streets:


Back to the race. Matt made it 130 km this day, after getting dropped once, then caught up in a crash, and got back on again. The race then did some local laps of a town by the sea, then they got back on the dijks and he got dropped again there. Peter was collecting tickets all day on the back, but when they hit the dijks by the sea (just where Matt got dropped) Peter found himself in a little group of 6-8 riders who'd been dropped off the back, as the peloton splintered into many groups for the run home. No point wasting his energy, so he stopped and got in the car with us at 170 km, Gil turned the GPS on and we headed back to the finish. The race was essentially one big lap of the region, so we had to wait a bit for the guys who got dropped during the race to get back to the start/finish. 3 of them got dropped within 2 km of each other, so we were able to tell them all 'they're just back there, go meet up with them and ride together', so they all rode back together, and we're not sure how in such an expanse of space, but they manged to pick up Matt on his way back. Somehow, after being dropped at about 40 km, they clocked up 160 km for the day! Luckily we didn't have to wait too long for them...

The sea from Holland:


It's not often to get a photo of Mark in action, but I snapped this one as he had just finished picking Matt up off the road and giving him a push after a big crash. Matt was lucky as he was uninjured and didn't have a mechanical problem. The Sparkasse team had 5 riders down, with 2 requiring new bikes (that mechanic was busy that crash!).



Both Wednesday and Thursday have been public holidays here, and most businesses were closed on Friday, so I'm enjoying a 5 day break from work. On Thursday I went to the continental race in Antwerp. The course was three laps of 55km, then a few local laps at the finish. I wasn't able to go in the car this day, as it was Nico's first day as DS driving the car, and Gil had to go to teach him how to DS. I went along with Rudi and Patrick to the feedstation (only 5km from the start/finish), and met up with the families and sat there most of the day having coffee at a nearby cafe. Then waited at the finish for the finish. Mark's away again today in North Holland provice at another race, but I have some work to do on the house so I didn't go.

And this is my cue to wrap up.

Linds